Archive for the ‘Street Genius Bloggers’ Category

What can I say? Workig with Lucy and Yem has been a real blast of fun. They are super awesome people, i never knew adults could be sooo fun (no offence). 🙂 I loved the little shortcuts we’d take to get to places on time and working in the office made me feel like I was really important, especially because the office staff were so welcoming. Seeing the shows and the being able to blog about them was a real treat. Because, usually when I go to shows I tend to forget to record or snap pictures of the event and I have to make do with memories in my head, and I have a very weird but huge imagination so you know….. Hehe. But when I had to blog about them, it made me feel responsible for actually taking bits and pieces of footage away with me, so it’s almost impossible to forget. Overall it’s nice to write or show to other why a show was exciting, or sad, or deep etc. Usually all people have to make do with is word of mouth.

I intend to keep blogging either on the poetry international bolg or my own blog (which i made by accident) on my page. It was an exciting festival, and being the late person that I am, I will probably bolg up media from the early parts of it. Lol. take care. 😀

hey everyone it’s micheal, just want to say it was a real good experience being intangled into the poetry international event and i would like to thank all the staff at southbank for being bright and wonderful to us blogger’s even though we came and invaded your space lol nah not really, i woyld like to thank yemisi and lucy because they are fantastic people who lead me to find inspiration i will keep in touch.
poetry international was a touching week for me i have never been more inspired!
in the space of a week i have learnt more about spoken word and poetry which has boost my levels a bit higher thanks to all the artist and performers there!!

One of the great things about Poetry International this year is that the Street Genius placements not only got to experience new poets, but they also met the people being the poems, poets, programmers and also librarians. This video is part of an interview between Michael Oladeji and Chris McCabe from the Poetry Library.

Here are some videos and audio of the night (24th October, Poetry Opener). A few poems read by Street geniuses and Reem Kelani, a solo by Bruno Heinen, and Reem getting her mic fixed, while she was onset. 😀 Enjoy!

Hi, my name is Samara Straker and I’m interested in poetry and music which is why I’m here. Yesterday, I went to the Blake Sunday event which was very good. However, we were late for the journey and we almost searched the whole of the River Thames for the Blake talk. Along our way, (I was with my other friend Mickel and organiser of the event Lucy and also some other man who was late and decided to tag along) We encountered some very strange things, you know how you walk down London Bridge and sometimes there are some very strange acts, well yeah, that’s sort of what happened. See what can happen when you’re late?!

Wooow, so much to take in on one night, but i guess that’s the beauty of it all. Can’t say there’s nothing to talk about. lol. Reem was incredibly energetic which is what the audience needed to get them up and jumping and excited about the festival. A powerful voice with a powerful soul. The John Berger event was quite interesting actually. I didn’t expect them to speak so much about how poetry affects our society worldwide, but it was nice to hear that people think of it as more than just a hobby. There are a couple of quotes I took away from the John Berger event but I can only remember one, which was: “Acca, the oldest of the most beautiful cities, the most beautiful of the old cities.” I very much like the use of words in that sentence.

And Reem Kelani, I can still remember some of the little scales and catchy riffs from her set. It was enjoyable being there but it’s just as good watching the videos. I’ll share my very fun experience with you. 😀

I’m so happy! It’s only day two and the blog is in full flow. We’ve got audio, video, text, image and more to come. Those of you who were at the opener on Friday will have seen some of the our Street Genius bloggers hanging around, taking pictures and generally capturing the action. Before the festival started, we invited them to a series of workshops aimed at introducing them to blogging and equipping them with the skills and confidence to get going.
In the video: Samara & Gizella

As you can see from the video, it was a fun(ny) learning experience for us all 🙂